UK Historic County Tops: Height vs County Area and Population

This section solves a debate that we had while descending from the summit of Ben Cleuch in Clackmannanshire: What’s the highest UK County Top relative to the size of the county? We were on a large mountain in a small county and speculated that it must be one of the outliers. As it turned out we were right and Clackmannanshire does have the largest height to area ratio. The rest of the top 13 are also in Scotland and mainly in the borders and central belt area. English county tops take up most of the other end of the scale with smaller high points compared with their area.

There’s some correlation with the population vs height ratio. English counties are more highly populated so take up most of the left hand side of the following chart. Scotland takes up most of the right hand side with many counties having high peaks and low populations.

Colours: Red = England, Blue = Scotland, Green = Wales, Grey = Northern Ireland
Source: The Demography of the Historic Counties via https://wikishire.co.uk/wiki/Counties_of_the_United_Kingdom

The English County Tops

See my post on The English County Tops to see the full list of the highest points in England, including:

• Historic Counties. Also referred to as Traditional Counties or Former Counties.

• Administrative Counties. Established by the Local Government Act 1888.

• Ceremonial Counties. Areas of England to which lord-lieutenants are appointed and defined by the Lieutenancies Act 1997.

• Metropolitan and Non-Metropolitan counties. Established by the Local Government Act 1972 and subsequent changes.

• Unitary Authorities. Established by the Local Government Act 1992, they are responsible for the provision of all local government services within a district.

The Scottish County Tops

See my post on The Scottish County Tops to see the full list of the highest points in Scotland, including:

• Scottish Shires. Historic subdivisions of Scotland established in the Middle Ages and used as administrative divisions until 1975.

• Historic Counties. Established by the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1889 and abolished by the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973.

• Scottish Council Areas. Also referred to as Present Day Counties. Established by the Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994.

The Welsh County Tops

See my post on The Welsh County Tops to see the full list of the highest points in Scotland, including:

• Historic Counties. Also referred to as Traditional or Ancient Counties.

• Principal Areas. Also referred to as Present-Day Counties. Established by the Local Government (Wales) Act 1994.

• Preserved Counties. Established by the Local Government Act 1972 and used for local government and other purposes between 1974 and 1996.

The Irish County Tops

See my post on the Irish County Tops to see the full list of the highest points in the island of Ireland, including:

• The 26 counties of the Republic of Ireland

• The 6 counties in Northern Ireland

Greater London High Points

See my Greater London High Points post to see the full list of the highest points of all 32 Greater London Boroughs, all remaining OS Trig Pillars and any summits greater than 100m.

UK National Parks, AONB and NSA High Points

See my UK National Parks, AONB and NSA High Points page for the full list of the:

• 15 UK National Parks.

• 46 Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

• 40 National Scenic Areas (NSA) in Scotland.
  
  

County Top Parent Peaks

See my post on County Top Parent Peaks for my attempt to determine the parentage of all UK and Ireland County Tops.

A peak's line parent is the closest higher peak on the highest ridge leading away from the peak's "key col". A col is the lowest point on the ridge between two summits and is roughly synonymous with pass, gap, saddle and notch. The highest col of a peak is its key col. If there is more than one ridge which can be followed to a higher peak then the line parent is the peak closest to the key col. Usually, a line parent must meet some prominence criteria, which might vary depending on the author and the location of the peak. Source: Wikipedia